Columnists

Shakespeare wrote, “the evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.” In American politics the process is reversed, as the longer a President is out of office the more his reputation is sanitized. Tricky Dick Nixon is recast as a “statesman.” And Ronald Reagan, who did more than any contemporary President to kill the American dream, is elevated to sainthood.
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While the media focused on the massacre of the conservative Fianna Fail Party in the recent Irish elections, the real story may be the earthquake on the Left, particularly the success of the new kids on the block, the United Left Alliance (ULA).
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Political campaigns have been compared to marketing campaigns for products where the candidates market themselves to the voters using modern marketing techniques such as market research, advertising, branding, product differentiation, product placement, and often, disparaging Brand X, the other product. The successful sale of the product depends in large part on marketing. Long ago, Republicans accepted and perfected this reality as did Obama in the last presidential election. Progressives, on the other hand, just do not seem to understand this concept.
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A reader posed an important question in her letter to the editor in The Planet: What is it that makes persons with mental illness resist taking medication? This is one of the things that seem to perplex people in the community; and it also makes it more difficult for mentally ill persons to receive much sympathy. I will try to give a detailed answer to this enigma in this week’s column.
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A few years back I wrote about the bestowal of the Ig Nobel Prize for medicine on UC-Davis ophthalmology professor Ivan Schwab for his explanation of why woodpeckers don’t get headaches. (Other Ig Nobels have honored studies of the effect of Viagra on jet-lagged hamsters and the fluid dynamics of swimming in syrup.)
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March is Women’s History Month. Why a celebration of the history of women in particular? And what’s it got to do with senior power? It’s annual recognition that recorded history still omits the history of females, and that when something is noted about them, it is often distorted.
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